


The One Where Chandler Tells Joey

by Maroonedpunk



Category: Friends (TV)
Genre: Coming Out, Friends to Lovers, Internalized Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 07:01:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16676845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maroonedpunk/pseuds/Maroonedpunk
Summary: It starts when Joey hugs him from behind.





	The One Where Chandler Tells Joey

**Author's Note:**

> I love them. So much.

It starts when Joey hugs him from behind. It’s not the hugging that’s weird, even if it is something they don’t do often; no, it’s the fact that Joey’s arms are wrapped right around his waist, Joey’s chest pressed against the small of his back, and Chandler feels a weird sensation run down his spine. That’s when he realizes how much he likes to be touched there.

It happens again when he borrows a frayed, very old Knicks hoodie of Joey’s and realizes how attracted he is to Joey’s musk. Despite being roommates for almost six years, Chandler had never found himself paying attention to Joey’s scent quite like this. In fact, he keeps pulling the sleeve of the hoodie over his hand and pressing it to his nose just to get a whiff of the remains of Joey’s cologne, deodorant, and probably even body odor considering how much he sucks at doing laundry. Usually, Chandler would care, but today, he doesn’t. The smell gives him a five-second high, just like he’s taking a drag of a cigarette or a sip of beer.

Chandler is sitting on the sofa in Monica’s apartment, staring at the ceiling, while she reads a book. Her eyes flicker over the top of her book to look at him and lowers it to her lap.

“Chandler, are you snorting cocaine? Because that is not a healthy alternative for smoking.”

“What?” He looks over at her, dropping his hand down to his side. “No! No. I’m just... spacing out. That’s all.”

“Doing some thinking?”

He presses his lips together. “Yes, something like that.”

Monica is intuitive and has known Chandler long enough to see when something was wrong. Perhaps this is what entices her to move up from the chair to rest comfortably against the coffee table so she’s facing him. “Play a game with me really quick.”

He sighs. “Is this Phoebe’s quick answering game?”

She smiles. “Okay, so you aren’t as incompetent as I thought.”

Chandler rolls his eyes. “Hardy har. Fine. Go for it.”

Monica wastes no time at all. “Moon or sun?”

“Sun.”

“Black or white?”

“Black.”

“What’s your favorite coffee order?”

“Cappucino.”

“Basketball or hockey?”

“Hockey.”

“Are you in love with Joey?”

“Yes.” Chandler realizes what he just said and tries to backpedal, practically launching himself off the sofa to retract his statement. “No! No, I’m not in love with Joey! What the hell, Mon?”

She smirks at him. “Chandler, you’ve been sniffing the sleeve of Joey’s hoodie for the past half an hour.”

“I’m not gay, okay? Just because my favorite movie is  _ Molin Rouge _ and I like bubble baths and little chocolates on my bed doesn’t mean I’m gay. Just because my father left my mom for the houseboy and is gaying it up with his burlesque in Vegas doesn’t make it my fault! That’s not fair! My parents don’t dictate my life!”

“I never said--”

“No!” He points an accusing finger at her. “No. I’m not gay.”

She raises her hands in defense. “Okay. You aren’t gay. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.” Chandler sits back down on the sofa and begins to chew on his thumbnail. He watches Monica carefully as she moves back towards the armchair and reaches for her book. “And another thing!”

She sighs loudly, leaning back in her chair as Chandler once again launches himself off the couch and begins to pace quickly back and forth. He thinks he might be starting to have a panic attack. “Why would you ever think I would be in love with Joey?”

“I was just kidding, Chandler! Why are you making such a big deal about this?”

“Because my whole life everyone has always made jokes about me being gay! Just because I haven’t been in that many relationships! I’m just... I’m just sick of it.”

“Sweetie, we all know you’re not gay.” She’s saying what she needs to. “It’s okay. Just breathe.”

“I could really go for a smoke right now, you know,” he’s still pointing at her begrudgingly, “and that’s your fault too.” 

Monica rolls her eyes as Chandler storms out of her apartment and into his own, unable to be bothered to chase after her dramatic friend. Chandler slams the door to his own apartment as loudly as he can muster and drops down into the recliner next to Joey, who’s currently watching  _ Baywatch. _ Chandler has to be honest with himself: he hasn’t been enjoying seeing hot girls in swimsuits when all he can think about is Joey running across the beach without a shirt on.

“What are you so grumpy about?” Joey pipes in that beautiful, rich New York accent of his. Chandler snorts. 

“Monica is making fun of me again.”

“What’s it this time? The way you dress or the way you talk?”

His frown deepens. “Thanks, man.”

Joey laughs and throws an elbow playfully into Chandler’s side. “You know I’m just kidding.”

Still frowning, Chandler looks away from his Italian roommate and mumbles, “she said I loved you.”

“Uh, duh! We’re best friends. I love you too.”

Joey really could be clueless but today, it’s the cutest damn thing in the whole world and Chandler hates it so much.

He chuckles a little just to make himself feel better. “Not like that, Joe. Like, in love with you.”

Joey’s smile grows bigger. “Well, no one’s been in love with me before, so that might be pretty cool.”

“No, Joe. That would make me gay.” Chandler watches Joey curiously as he reaches the remote out to turn down the volume in order to ponder what Chandler just said. His face twists into confusion.

“So... being in love with someone... are you telling me that’s different than just loving them?”

“Being in love with someone means having feelings for them. Wanting to be able to kiss them and... have sex. And stuff.”

Joey still looks confused. “I have sex with lots of people.”

“Okay, it’s more than that.” Chandler shifts his body toward Joey and pulls the sleeves of the hoodie over his hands. “It’s wanting to live with them, wanting them to be yours. It’s more than just sex. You understand that?”

He shrugs. “So... you can be in love with someone even if you don’t have sex?”

“Or haven’t. Relationships are more than just sex, dude.”

“I know that.” Joey sticks out his tongue and turns back toward the television. “By the way, I’ve been looking for that sweatshirt.”

“Should have been looking harder then.” Chandler smiles smugly to himself as he rests his hands behind his arms. Joey turns the volume back up, and they finish the episode of  _ Baywatch _ together. Chandler realizes how lucky he is to have Joey Tribbiani as his roommate, to have had the universe bring them together.

Perhaps that is what finally brings Chandler to admit to himself that, yeah, he might possibly be just the teeny, tiniest bit in love with Joey. Because he’s laying in bed, his tongue pressed into the side of his cheek, listening to Joey have sex with some girl he met at an audition. She’s very loud and occasionally, Chandler can hear Joey too.

He isn’t sure what makes this time so different. He’s heard Joey have sex before. To be honest, Joey had sex practically every night with a different girl. The only girl Chandler ever slept with was Janice-- and Monica, once, which didn’t count because it wasn’t in his bedroom.

But it’s almost two in the morning and Chandler is palming himself through his pajama bottoms because he’s thinking about what it would be like to be the one Joey is thrusting into and kissing and touching. His whole life, Chandler was made fun of for being “gay,” and even the word itself was something he used as an insult. He suppressed his childhood and struggled with his father because he didn’t want to be anything like that man. If he admitted to having feelings for Joey, that would mean he was interested in men, just like his father. That’s what everyone was expecting. That would ruin his life. 

Chandler finds himself wandering over to Monica and Rachel’s apartment, which is unlocked as usual. The lights are dimmed, where Rachel is draped along the couch watching a film. She looks up as Chandler shuts the door behind him.

“Hi sweetie,” she smiles, sitting up and adjusting the blanket keeping her warm as she pauses the movie, “everything okay?”

“Uh, Joey is banging some chick and... it’s loud.” He shrugs lamely as he sits down next to her and pushes his head into the crook of her neck. She strokes the back of his head with her gentle hands and kisses his forehead.

“I think there’s something more to it than that.”

“You think a lot of things, doesn’t mean they’re true.” Sarcasm and brashness were Chandler’s specialty, Chandler’s defense against all the emotion boiling inside of him. He mutters an apology as Rachel fits her arms around his waist. “I’m sorry. It’s just, these past couple of months, I’ve been having these, these  _ thoughts _ and it’s making me so angry.”

“Talking about your emotions is kinda hard for you, right?” Rachel sits him up so she can read his face. Sure, Rachel was a little self-obsessed and occasionally kind of dumb, but she was also very driven and independent. She didn’t freak out about relationships like Chandler did, despite her and Ross being on and off several times. Rachel wasn’t afraid of being alone like he was.

“No, it’s really simple. That’s why I dragged myself over here.” He sighs again. “Sorry. I just, last week, Monica and I were playing the game Phoebe made up with the fast questions, and she asked if I was in love with Joey. And I got... really defensive about it.”

She nods her head sympathetically, her hand touching his leg. “Hun, you get defensive about everything.”

“I know. I think it’s because it came out of nowhere.”

“You think this came out of nowhere?” Rachel shakes her head and chuckles to herself. “Honey, this did not come out of nowhere. You and Joey are very close. I think everyone can see how you’ve been acting over the last couple of months. It’s much different than how you usually act around him. You’ve been tiptoeing around Joey like you’re afraid of him.”

Chandler doesn’t reply. Has he been like that? He’s not sure. He hasn’t been paying attention to anything around him because all he can think about is Joey.

“Your nose is always buried in his sweatshirts. At the coffee shop, you’re always looking at him, whether you realize it or not. And you’ve been trying an awful lot lately to prove how masculine you are.”

“I’m not gay,” he mutters.

“Gay and masculine aren’t the same thing, sweetheart. You don’t need to prove how much of a man you are just because you’re having romantic thoughts about Joey. The five of us are super close, and I guarantee everyone has thought about everyone at least once. Hell, even Monica and I have made out once or twice. Why don’t you just tell him how you feel?”

“Wait, really?” When Rachel frowns, he waves his hand. “That’s not important. What  _ is _ important is that I definitely cannot tell Joey how I feel about him. We’re roommates. And Joey is definitely not gay.”

“What is it with you and that word?” It hits her. “Oh. Your parents.”

“Yeah, no shit my parents. My whole childhood was a fucking nightmare. And if I end up like my father gaying it up with an army of young boys at my bidding, I will never forgive myself.”

Rachel’s face falls and Chandler fears he’s hurt her feelings despite only insulting his sorry excuse of a father. The hand on his leg reaches up to touch the crook of his arm.

“Chandler, honey, you are not like your father. Having feelings for Joey doesn’t mean you’ll leave your family in the future or make the same mistakes he did. You have got to let yourself be  _ you,  _ or you’ll be miserable your entire life. I don’t want you to be like that. None of us do. We all love and care about you so much. We’d be supportive of you no matter what decision you make.”

“So... you’re saying that I can admit I like Joey and still be myself?”

“Yes.” She leans forward to peck his forehead again with those soft lips of hers. “You’ll still be Chandler Bing, no matter who you like.”

Monica sticks her head out of her room just then, a loopy smile on her face. “We’ll love you no matter what.”

Chandler has to bite his tongue to avoid replying with a sarcastic comment, but he still allows himself to shake his head and roll his eyes. He never thought about how lucky he was to have so many important friends in his life at the age he was now. Being in his twenties, Chandler didn’t really know what he was supposed to be doing with himself. But he didn’t feel so alone like he had in the past.

He makes coffee in the morning so it’s wafting through the apartment when Joey clambers out of bed. The girl, unruly and holding her heels with her pinkie finger, bids Chandler hello and goodbye in passing as she leaves the apartment, most likely never to be seen again. Joey had a habit of never actually calling back the girls he invited over. Joey was a player. A womanizer. A douchebag, maybe, to some people.

But he was also Chandler’s best friend, the person he trusted with his whole life, the person he told everything too.

The person Chandler was in love with.

Joey, in just his boxers, yawns as he makes his way out of his bedroom. He seems to perk up just a little bit at the smell of coffee as he sits down at the counter and scratches his head.

“Coffee?” Chandler sets a mug down in front of his groggy roommate who moans happily and practically slaps his face into it.

“You’re the best, Chan.” After a sip, Joey looks up at him. “Did you sleep okay?”

“I uhm, actually slept on Monica and Rachel’s couch.”

“Oh.” Joey grins. “A bit too loud for you, yeah?”

“I don’t know how you get girls to scream like that.”

“Practice.” Joey takes another sip of his coffee. “How are you?”

“Okay. You’re being weird.”

“I’m being weird? You’re being weird.” Joey crosses his arms across his chest. “I’m not being weird.”

Chandler copies his movements and clicks his tongue. “I’m not being weird either.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Okay!” Chandler throws his hands into the air and rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet. He’s starting to get anxious again and knows if he doesn’t get this off his chest now, it will never happen. Rachel’s words echo in his eardrums.  _ You’ll still be Chandler Bing, no matter who you like. _

“It’s not okay, actually.” Chandler rubs at the back of his neck with a calloused palm and takes a deep breath. “Joey, I have feelings for you, and I haven’t been able to shake them. I know that’s wrong and awkward considering, well, you just had sex with some girl--”

“Chandler, it didn’t mean anything.”

“What?” He adds extra emphasis on the first half of the word, blinking his eyes rapidly.

“You said you can have feelings for someone without sleeping with them. And I’ve been doing some thinking. All the people I’ve had sex with I’ve never had feelings for. That girl proved that. I think I do have feelings for someone I’ve never slept with.”

Chandler isn’t thinking straight, no pun intended, and feels even worse when those words leave Joey’s mouth. He feels his face fall and his stomach twist like someone stabbed him with a knife. “Oh, you do?”

“Yeah. It’s kinda funny, because when I started thinking about it, I realized that I thought about them in the same way they thought about me.”

“You guys gonna get married?” Chandler says miserably. Joey scoffs.

“And I thought I was the dumb one.”

“Excuse me?”

Instead of replying, Joey leans across the counter to tug on Chandler’s shirt in order to bring him closer. This whole thing is confusing and weird and amazing at the same time because suddenly their lips are touching and Chandler is making his way around the counter to place his hands on Joey’s waist. The coffee on his breath makes the kiss so much better, so much more perfect, that Chandler can’t believe it took them this long for this to happen.

When they pull away, Joey fixes the collar of Chandler’s tee and smiles. “I guess it took me so long to figure it out because we already live together and spend so much time hanging out. I just didn’t realize that the feelings I was feeling were more than just friend, er, feelings.”

“Exactly!” Chandler says too loudly, jumping up and down in excitement. This explained why women never wanted to talk to him. “That’s why this is perfect! Because we already have a relationship, just, now, it can be... romantic.”

“But if it’s romantic, does that mean we can’t have sex? Because of the feelings?”

“I think having sex will only strengthen the feelings.”

Joey’s eyes light up. “Well, what the hell are you waiting for? Let’s go!”

“Wait! Wait.” Chandler grabs Joey by the shoulders and shakes him lightly. “We can’t tell the others.”

Joey snorts. “Cause that  _ always _ works out well.”

He’s right, but they can always worry about that later. 


End file.
